Shinedown guitarist Zach Myers defended the band's use of backing tracks during live shows, saying in an interview with Rock Feed that 90 percent of rock artists do the same thing.
Myers explained, “I can't bring a 25-piece orchestra on tour with me, but there's a 25-piece orchestra on 'Second Chance,' which is one of our biggest songs, so if I can have it in there . .. ” He added, “We have songs where we don't even play to a click track — we do it both ways.”
He continued, “Everything you see us playing on stage we're playing. But you know what? Yeah, if there's a shaker on a song that adds an element of energy to the song, we're gonna put a shaker in there. Instead of having to pay some dude to play a shaker . . . we're gonna do that.”
Myers admitted, “In other genres of music, there's a lot of people who use tracks that aren't playing anything up there, which is a bit ridiculous . . . Could we go up there, just the four of us, and put on the best rock show ever? Of course. But that's not how we wanna do it.”
The guitarist insisted that he could “safely say” that 90 percent of rock acts use backing tracks onstage.
Shinedown frontman Brent Smith told us a while back that delivering a great live show is always Shinedown's first priority: “We want to give them the most incredible performances night after night, and play as diligently, as hard, as mean, as aggressive, as loving, as caring and as thoughtful as we can to our audience. We just want the music to speak for itself. I think as long as that happens, then everything will be fine.”
Shinedown recently postponed its “Deep Dive” tour dates from spring to summer. The newly rescheduled trek will now begin on July 31st in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
